"Jeopardy!" champ passes $1 million mark

He also mentioned he'll make a donation to PBS and NPR so he'll no longer feel guilty during their pledge drives

 

Edit: Sorry, didn't see Gort advisory on this page.

 

There is no way in the world the shows are rigged. Not with Quiz show scandals still looming over the industry. But I think it's time to bring back Charles Van Dornen. Or maybe I should have rephrased that in the form of question!

 

Ken doesn't appear to know much about rock music.
On Jeopardy today there was a category called
"Sentimental Rock" and he didn't even try to buzz
in. It's a good thing he's not on Rock n' Roll Jeopardy!

 

yeah, guess he's never heard of Bad Company/ Foreigner/ REO Speedwagon or Whitesnake.....all answers to questions.

 

But he managed to win $50,000 in spite of it ... none of them knew the answers to that category ...

 

I think they have to get Cliff from Cheers on there. He is the only one with a chance against Ken. He did OK until Final Jeopardy!

 

He's a Mormon. I bet if they ask him questions about Donny and Marie Osmond he'd run the board!

 

I guess you won't see him for a while as reruns start next week. A Jeopardy "Cliffhanger" - almost like it was planned.

 

For the longest time I couldn't figure out why he kept deliberately avoiding setting a new single-day record for winnings, despite numerous opportunities to do so. This past week it finally hit me: He's waiting until the last show of the season to do it, to go out with a "bang".

Sure 'nuff, he finally set the new record in the show that aired Friday night. Guess we'll see how much father he goes come September.

 

I saw a couple of his posts on a Jeopardy! messageboard. He said he didn't want to bust record just for the sake of doing it, and he felt that betting just a little more than enough just to break someone else's record is petty (didn't use that word, but that was my impression). I think he broke it Friday because it was just to easy not to- he had SO much more than everyone else and he was confident about the category.

 

I actually have done some research of that 21 scandal. It was a HUGE deal in the early fifties. It triggered the DJ scandals of '59 and '60 that ended up frying Alan Freed.
Van Doren was the son of a very famous and highly regard Harvard (I think off hand) prof, who not only embarrassed the intellectual elite of America but his family as well. Charles was given a spot on The Today Show, and was featured in Time, Look, and Life. (the then equivelant {sort of} of Newsweek, People and US) He was the poster boy for "do well in school." He made it "cool" to be an "egghead" in the years that followed the Adli Stevenson (vs Eisenhower) slam on "eggheads."
It was as big as OJ, if not bigger at that time. It's really par for the "white bread" 50s that wanted a clean cut "All-American" (read: WASP) to represent the College Boy. In real life, Semple was not as nerdy as the movie presented him to be. He was not in it for the money. He was a genuinely brilliant guy who was basically axed because he just didn't look all that great. He even inspired a TV drama, then movie, Marty, about a not so great looking schlub which garnered the oscar for Ernest Borgnine. (I think, again off hand, it was around the time of Quiz Show, I was researching.)
But it was so huge, it changed Televsion. In fact, quiz shows disappeared for the longest time, except for the ones with celebrities, like I've Got A Secret.
Ralph Edwards got so roasted for that show, he created Tick Tack Doe, and another, where, that I can't remember the name of off hand either, but were SOOOOO EASY, it made Street Smarts look like Jeopardy!
Basically, the quiz show scandals shook the TV world, and the entire country. And why Morrow had that phoney accent is beyond me. I think it really hurt the film. But for the most part, it stayed pretty straight with the facts, and was a good movie.

 

New Contestant: "Alex, I'll take THINGS THAT KEN DOESN'T KNOW for $1000"
Alex: "And it's the Daily Double"

 

Last week on the show the category was rock songs or soft rock or something and he stood there like a deer in the headlights.Pretty basic stuff too like foreigner and styx,stuff like that.
Funny

 

Who? JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Which is why we will never see him on Rock&Roll Jeopardy.

 

If you want to know what happens to Ken, you can click this link.

http://www.kottke.org/04/09/some-ken-jennings-news

If you're overly sensitive to such things, don't.

 

Thanks for the spoiler, dude.

 

He did say if you wanted to know what happens to the guy......

 

This'll be the worst-kept secret in TV history in no time. I heard a DJ on the radio give it away this morning--with no spoiler alert. I'm sure it'll be all over the newspapers and TV news shows tonight and tomorrow.

 

And it's been on the front page of slashdot since this morning.